The Cheapest Form of Warfare
by DHWMirror
Summary: She comes like clockwork, all curls and cruelty. First published - 2012.


**GS100 Challenge:** Wine and Cheese  
 **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters. Just playing with them I promise to put them back in one piece when I'm finished.

* * *

 **Monday**.

She's his punishment, he supposes. A penance for beating Death in a game of solitaire.

 _Know-it-all Bitch_.

'Now don't be like that, Severus,' she says, her bushy curls tangling in the wind.

He can't look at her, can't bear see the scorn in her face. His hands itch to grasp her pale throat, squeeze till her pretty little lips turn blue.

Instead, he picks up pebbles, skimming them across the great lake. It's inane, he knows, but it doesn't matter. Anything to distract him from the hatred.

'I want you to leave now.'

And she does, for a while.

* * *

 **Tuesday.**

It's a prison.

Only it isn't really. Today it's a wine and cheese party, Hogwarts' Great Hall the backdrop to his eternal damnation. It's a room of ghosts, of hatred for a life he couldn't have.

Angry, he thrusts his hands into Remus' hair, crushing their mouths together. He tastes of ash and red wine and it makes him nauseous.

'Subversion was never your forte, Severus,' she says, boredom colouring her words. 'He's not real you know.'

He turns to look at her, all defiance and fury.

'Neither are you.'

She merely shrugs.

'How can you be so sure?'

* * *

 **Wednesday.**

Severus is in his classroom, pacing. His eyes, glassy with unshed tears, are fixed upon the cold stone floor. He knows what awaits him should he tear his gaze from the ground. Sins are given flesh here, and therefore meaning.

She surveys Draco's pale body hanging from the beam, taking it in with tired brown eyes. The boy's not dead, merely sleeping, each soft exhale curling opaquely through the cold air.

'I'd expected more from you, Severus. But you're so… boring.'

Guilt is a tricky emotion and he is consumed by it. He knows he could have done more.

* * *

 **Thursday.**

He was in a meadow today, wildflowers swaying gently in the breeze. She danced amongst them, nature's rhythm guiding her feet.

'You're cracked in the head, you know,' she said conversationally, laughter on lips. 'At least that's what the Mediwitches are saying. Poor old straight-jacketed Snape, mad as the proverbial hatter.'

'Shut up!'

'A sleeping mind in a million pieces,' she cried to the sky, twisting and twirling in patterns unknown. 'I wonder which dirty little piece I am.'

She smirked at him.

'I'm only here because you can't have her. Pervert.'

Sometimes she'd say the most hurtful things.

* * *

 **Friday.**

It's snowing, the soft white flakes falling in a flurry to kiss the darkened ground. He watches them through the window, forehead resting against the cool glass.

He's in the dining room at the old headquarters. It smells of bread and Molly Weasley. All motherly and safe, though he never thought of her that way. It's supposed to be comforting, he thinks. Only the intent misses its mark and he is left hollow, more shell than man.

She doesn't visit today and he's thankful.

The madness comes and goes, but the prison is always there. As is the hatred.

* * *

 **Saturday**

'Why not come with me, Severus?' Albus' extended hand was black and burnt and withered. 'A new adventure.'

'You're dead.'

The tinkling of broken glass filled the air as the Headmaster laughed. She was smashing bottles now, sat on the edge of Albus' desk, watching as they shattered into a million little pieces.

'My dear boy, there is more waiting than sorrow and fear.'

' _Amo, amas, amat_ ,' she says, her legs swinging back and forth like a child.

'Yes! Very good!' Albus cried. 'Come, Severus.'

'No, please,' he pleaded, pressing back against the wall. 'I don't want to die.'

* * *

 **Thursday.**

Time is fluid, slipping through his fingers in unexpected ways. Never quite heading forward like it used to. It doubles back when left unchecked, trapping him in days of deja vu.

He watches as she flops down next to him, her dress ruched up around her waist. Her eyes meet his, dark pools of nothing in a pretty face. The gaze is mocking but he doesn't care. They're burning here, together, their souls crawling with flame.

'I'm only here because you can't have her.'

The grass is wet beneath his fingers and he swears he's been here before.

'Pervert.'

* * *

 **Friday.**

Sometimes he wonders why Lily never comes. Everyone else has, in one way or another.

He's not mad, he reasons. If he were then surely Lily would have visited him by now. His little flower with the snapped stem and kind, green gaze.

Instead _she_ comes, almost like clockwork, in a swirl of curls and skin. All beauty and nothingness wrapped in silk. The schoolgirl anachronism that makes him burn deep inside.

'Come play, Severus,' she calls, a cruel sort of mirth to her words.

Maybe he is mad after all, and this is just his psyche protecting him.

* * *

 **Saturday.**

I don't want you.'

'No, you don't,' she says, her ruby red lips curling at the edges. 'But you need me.'

'No.'

'Yes. I am your anchor in the storm.'

She's straddling him, holding him fast to the world like any good anchor should. His hands creep up her thighs seemingly of their own volition.

'Why you?'

'You tell me. It's your mind, after all.'

'You're not real.'

The words leave his mouth in a whisper heavy with lust and fear.

'Does it matter?' she says, a quirk of an eyebrow as her hand unzips his trousers.

It doesn't.

* * *

 **Sunday.**

He lies beside her, heavy and sated. They're on a ship today, sailing across a blanket of stars, enveloped in night's warm caress. The boat rocks gently against the creases and he thinks on the subtitles of hatred.

Love and hate. The two bastard children of a godless universe. Twins of an identical persuasion; similar and yet different in all the little ways that matter.

 _Hermione._

She is the punishment for an unrequited love affair. The second of his life. Deep down he knows she's not real. But he loves her now and that's all that matters.

Isn't it?


End file.
